On Wednesday’s episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kathy Hilton had quite the cringeworthy moment. Host Andy Cohen played a game of “Will Kathy Know Them?” with her and cast mate Crystal Kung Minkoff. It immediately went downhill.
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When a photo of Lizzo flashed on the screen, Hilton was asked if she knew which celebrity it was. “I feel like I do,” she replied before taking a guess. “Precious?”
Hilton mistook the “About Damn Time” singer for Gabourey Sidibe, the actress who portrayed the fictional character in the 2009 film Precious. When Cohen and Kung Minkoff burst into laughter at Hilton’s “mistake,” she tried to do damage control by stating: “That’s what I call her! Her nickname is Precious to me.”
You really can’t expect much from out of touch white celebrities, but this mixup was especially painful. Both Lizzo and Sidibe are plus-size Black women—that’s literally all they have in common. It didn’t take long for Black Twitter to express their disgust.
One user remarked:
When Precious came out, a lot of people used the character’s name as a derogatory label to fuel their fatphobia and to bully. So no, I don’t think that it’s funny that Lizzo, home minding her own business, had to watch herself be called Precious in front of millions on live tv.
Hilton tried to explain her confusion by stating: “The screen was so far away and my vision is terrible,” she said on the Queens of Bravo fan account. “I couldn’t even make out who Justin Timberlake or Melissa Etheridge was.”
This error plays into the “all Black people look alike” stereotype. Of course—this isn’t the first time a housewife from the franchise has been accused of racism.
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